THE BEACONS FAQ: It's Time To Set The Story Straight About Beacons And Apple's iBeacon System

Beacons are a new type of device that could change the way people shop in stores and revolutionize how retailers collect consumer data and interact with shoppers. Retailers can use beacons to trigger location-based features on customers' smartphone apps, including targeted coupons, store maps, and hands-free payments.

There has been a lot of confusion about how beacons actually work, so as part of new research on beacons from BI Intelligence, we've put together an in-depth "Beacons Explainer," with frequently asked questions on beacons. The explainer is paired with our exclusive market forecast, which shows the trajectory for beacon adoption. Beacons are becoming the most rapidly adopted in-store technology since mobile card readers.

BLE is the signal emitted by beacons, and it's important for two reasons. First, it transmits radio waves, which can penetrate physical barriers like walls, unlike Wi-Fi or cell signals, which are often disrupted. Second, BLE consumes only a fraction of the battery power that classic Bluetooth does.

Sort of. iBeacon is not an off-the-shelf beacon that retailers can buy and install in their stores (at least not yet). Apple has filed documents with the Federal Communications Commission, which suggest that the company wants to manufacture iBeacon hardware. Currently, iBeacon is a system built into the latest version of Apple's iOS 7 mobile operating system that lets iPhones and iPads constantly scan for nearby Bluetooth devices. When iBeacon identifies a beacon, it can wake up relevant apps on someone's phone, even when an app is closed and not running in the background. Additionally, iPads and iPhones can act as beacons; they can emit beacon signals to wake up apps on other iOS devices.

Developers have to include the unique identifier of a beacon in the code so their app will be able to recognize it. If an app doesn't know the identifier for a beacon, then it can't be on the lookout for its BLE signal. Most beacon vendors provide developer support to help users configure their apps.